


Arch to the Sky - Snippets 1978-1996

by kalijean, SLWalker



Series: Arch to the Sky [34]
Category: due South
Genre: Arch to the Sky, F/M, Gen, Leaside (1971-1990), M/M, Nipawin (1991-1995), Regina (1990-1991), Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalijean/pseuds/kalijean, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1978-1996: Snapshots in Arch to the Sky before Chicago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Normal

****

1978

Myra's younger brother was seated primly at the table and was in the process of making a crumbly mess of a cookie in a glass of milk.

It wouldn't do any good to clean up the mess until he was done, and besides that, the phone conversation she was carrying on was becoming very distressing very quickly.

She paced the kitchen, phone to her ear and the cord stretched across the room, those big blue eyes of Renfield's following her even as he fished a large chunk from the glass.

" _It's just not _normal_ , Myra._"

"Define normal, Gordon," she replied, as close to a snap as she generally ever got.

The soggy chunk of cookie was dredged from the deep only to be dropped on the floor. Myra pinched the bridge of her nose and chose to ignore it. The hiss of the pot on the stove had her scrambling to take the lid off and keep it from boiling over, tucking the phone between her face and her shoulder.

" _Normal. You're twenty years old. You shouldn't be over there every day playing Mum to your little brother. I never get to see you. Half the time when I do, he's there. Where the Hell is your mother?_ "

"You know what?" Myra slammed the pot lid down on the stovetop. Behind her, she heard Renfield jump; there was a tell-tale tinkle of glass and rush of spilled liquid. She sighed down the phone, practically _hearing_ Gordon's eye-roll. "My mother is none of your business. I don't know who you think you are, Gordon, but just because we go out sometimes doesn't mean you get to--"

There was a heavy exasperated sigh down the line. " _Never mind. Forget I said anything._ "

"Fine. Hang on a second, Renfield's spilled his milk." Absently she righted the empty glass before petting the boy's blonde hair by way of apology for the scare. His lap was soaked. He looked more distressed by the loss of his cookie relics than the wardrobe issue, however.

" _Yeah. Listen... I don't think this is going to work._ "

Myra was dipping a rag in dishwater when he said it, and she nearly dropped the phone. "...sorry?"

" _I don't think it's going to work out. Maybe look me up when you have more free time, all right?_ "

She took the phone from her ear and stared at it. She glanced over at Renfield, who was currently picking smaller soggy cookie pieces off the table and eating them.

She looked at the phone again. "Fine. Suit yourself."

After she hung it up, she pressed the dishrag to her own forehead, breathing out.


	2. Three Days Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1988: During the Carver case, first time around.

The house was quiet when he came in, his feet practically dragging against the floor. Outside, it was raining. Inside, it was warm and dry. Ray didn't notice.

"Three days," Ange said, from the kitchen door, a mug of tea in her hand and the long nightshirt she was wearing making her look somehow girlish. The expression on her face was anything but.

"I know, I know, but I'm _this close_ ," Ray said, shoving his wet hair back off of his forehead with a hand, and then peeling out of his coat. "I'm gonna get this guy, Ange. I can feel it."

"I want him off the streets as much as the next cop, Ray, but you've been out there three _days_. This isn't police work, it's slow suicide."

Ray shot her an irritated glance. "Do I look like I'm dying here? Huh? Do I look like I'm about to drop dead? Do I look--"

"You look like you're so caught up in getting this guy that you don't care what happens outside of it." Angie's face was set in serious, grim lines. "I get it, Ray, but you're obsessed. You're obsessed and you're gonna end up screwing up at exactly the wrong moment."

"Oh, geez, thanks Ange." Ray all but threw his coat at the coat rack. "Thanks for letting me know what you really think! Like I just _love_ hanging around chasing down random psychos, like this is some kinda _fun_ , and now you gotta tell me just what you think of how good I am--"

"Stop." Ange rubbed her face with her free hand, then tucked her arm around herself. "Just stop. You know what I meant. This is dangerous, Ray. Let someone else chase Carver for a day, and just... get some sleep or something."

Ray fell quiet, dropping his head. His hair slumped off his head again, lifelessly, and went back to dripping on the floor.

Drip. Dripdrop. Drip.

"I don't know if I can sleep while he's out there, Ange. Three days, three _hundred_ days. He's gotta go down."

Angie shook her head, closing her eyes in frustration. "Just don't go down with him, Ray."


	3. Defining Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1988: Towards the end of Ray and Angie's marriage.

"This isn't working, Ray."

Angie's dark eyes were serious and kind, and Ray wished to God she was just mad at him, instead of this. Mad, he could understand. Mad, he had lived with all his life. He was pretty decent at deflecting it, letting it roll off his armor. But this, he had no defense against, not really. No good explanation for, either. He couldn't get it up, and trying to make love was awkward and desperate and scared and horrible. Wasn't the first time this had happened, but it was the first time she said anything.

Ray thought maybe Ange had every right in the universe to be mad about it. He was twenty-eight, there wasn't a single good reason for his plumbing to not work on him.

But she wasn't mad. She wasn't even disappointed. She was just... looking at him with that kind, serious look that she saved for poor, abused wives on the beat, or laid off old manufacturing workers who lost everything and lived on the streets. Frank and without condemnation, compassionate. Ray recognized it for what it was, but he wished he didn't.

She pitied him.

"Yeah," he answered, as nonchalantly as he could, getting out of bed and heading for the bathroom, keeping the sheet wrapped around himself. Rolled his shoulders once, and wearing the best 'doesn't matter to me' look he had, he breezed it off with, "Sorry, Ange. Maybe next time."

She winced, and he realized his mistake. But he didn't try to fix it, just got through the bathroom door, closing it and leaning back against it, feeling the burn of shame and the spike of self-recrimination in the hard, almost panicked pounding of his heart.


	4. Safety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1991: Turnbull, towards the end of Depot.

The hotel was fairly well kept, and he didn't really notice any of it.

The clerk was nice; she took one look at him and the pair of high browns tucked under his arm and smiled. Turnbull thought that he smiled back, though he wasn't entirely sure. The trip from the desk, to his assigned room, was mostly a blur.

He also wasn't entirely certain how long he stood in the doorway, though it must have been some time. Nearly asleep on his feet, with his bag of clothes and his course books and his leather polishing kit over his shoulder, and his boots under his arm.

Finally, though, he moved. Set the bag on the chair, and sat on the edge of the bed.

It was quiet here. No troopmates moving, talking, laughing, whispering. No sidelong looks or whispers. No subtle threatening gestures. No malice-edged little smirks. No chance he would find something unwelcome in his bed or his locker. No... No...

...no...

...

When he woke up six hours later, he was curled up on top of the covers, laying on his new boots, still dressed and still in his coat.

It was the longest stretch of unbroken sleep he had managed in three months.


	5. Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1991: As referenced later in the arc... a snapshot of The Coffee Incident.

By the time Russ made it in to the Detachment, it looked like a bomb had gone off. And there was Mike's rook, shivery and kinda... well, _shiny_ , sweating and jittery and wide-eyed and hopped off the scale on caffeine, barely sitting in the chair where Mike had put him and looking ready to climb out of his skin or climb the walls.

Honest to God, he had no idea that Turnbull had never had coffee before, and Mike tended to go through it by the gallon, so when Turnbull went after that coffee pot, Mike thought nothing of it. And when Turnbull went through over half of it in about, oh, a half-hour of steady consumption, he just thought the guy might have had a hard time switching to a different shift and needed a wake-up.

Russ stared at the destruction. At Mike. At Turnbull. Mike almost clapped a hand over Turnbull's mouth, but thankfully, Turnbull could follow a hand signal even jacked out of his mind on caffeine.

"About the mess..." Mike started, but he already knew he was gonna be the one cleaning it up.


	6. Abomination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1992: Turnbull gets roped into an opportunistic art project.

As nightmare fuel, it was effective; Turnbull nearly fishtailed 420 spotting it looming in the night, street lamps reflecting off the newly fallen and _newly shaped_ snow. The adrenaline pressed him into his seat; he stopped in the road just to figure out how _that_ had happened.  
  
Their detachment building had a side and front yard; all of the snow from both had been turned into an abomination of a snowman. It towered some twelve feet tall. A rocky face had been pressed into it, a smile that could only be called _deranged_ ; there were even angry eyebrows on it. Only the nose was missing.  
  
Turnbull parked and went to find the culprit, walking around the front of the building, towards the snowman. He was certain that Guy was involved; this was just the sort of madness that man could get up to, and at the hour he would get up to it.  
  
He nearly ran into another body and instinctively went to either catch said body or stall it from escaping--  
  
\--and it was _Corporal Chase._  
  
"I need a carrot, rook," Chase declared, fervent, face windburned and civilian clothes snow-covered. "Can you see if the IGA will let you in early to get one?"  
  
Turnbull gaped back for a moment, mouth working soundlessly, before he turned around to go, get in his cruiser and do as his former FTO asked.  
  
Forty minutes later, a giant aberration of a carrot was on the giant abomination of a snowman. Fifty minutes later, they both peered around the back corner of the detachment together, laying in wait for Staff Sergeant Severn to come into work.  
  
And fifty-three minutes later -- _"Oh, sweet Jesus Christ--!"_ \-- Turnbull clapped both hands over his mouth to keep quiet, while Chase keeled over laughing in the snow.


	7. Mascot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, Severn's patience did have limits.

"I'm going to kill him."  
  
Turnbull wasn't sure he'd ever seen Staff Sergeant Severn turn that color before. It was something quite close to _purple,_ and there was a vein standing out on his forehead that was mildly worrisome.  
  
It had been one day since the snowman had made its appearance on the lawn of the Nipawin Detachment. Turnbull was honest by nature; if he was asked directly, he would come clean as to his part in that particular venture, small though it was. So far, however, he had not been asked directly. Severn had asked him, "Didn't you see him building it?" and Turnbull had been perfectly able to answer honestly, "No, sir, I hadn't."  
  
Severn knew it was Chase, because Chase had been unable to stop himself from laughing for several minutes, to the point of tears. Turnbull had been able to sneak away before his own giggles had given him away, but he had not gone so far that he didn't hear Severn track down the cackling Corporal and ask him _what the hell that thing on the lawn was._  
  
After Chase had left, still giggling intermittently and challenging Turnbull's composure repeatedly with the urge to do the same, Severn had taken a snow shovel outside and tried to knock it down. Ultimately, he had failed, returning red-faced and angry. The snow had been heavy and wet, and Chase had gone to some considerable effort to make the snowman as solid as it could be, given the building material. It remained outside grinning psychotically at passers-by and elevating their commanding officer's blood pressure by its mere existence.  
  
By the time Turnbull had finished his paperwork and left for home, several people had gathered to look at it.  
  
There existed some temptation to find a reason to stay just to see what would happen, but sleep called and he reluctantly left. Shift change from afternoon to midnight had been relatively uneventful; Chase never mentioned the snowman, though Turnbull was quite certain he was still pleased with himself about it, given the occasional smirk that crossed his mouth whenever he walked past one of the windows.  
  
Which lead to now, and the alarming shade of purple Severn was turning. Turnbull, quite wisely, didn't feel it was prudent to say anything about the color. Or, for that matter, the snowman. Apparently, the man's patience _did_ have limits. This was the first time Turnbull had genuinely seen them run out, and while it made him mildly uneasy, he wasn't the one in the metaphorical dog house.  
  
Severn had a rolled-up newspaper in his hand. Turnbull suspected he was going to use it to smack Corporal Chase with when he came in for his shift. _Dog house indeed._  
  
Turnbull picked up a copy of the Journal himself on the way home and quickly learned why.  
  
The snowman was front page news. Chase was leaning against it in uniform, arms crossed, chin up and beaming at the camera as it loomed twice as tall as he was, still grinning in that truly disturbing and disturbed manner. There was no article, just a headline, a picture and the caption underneath of it.  
  
**Nipawin RCMP Gets a Snowy Mascot**  
  
_Inspired by the snowfall Sunday night, Cpl. Mike Chase claims to have built the snowman as tribute to S/Sgt. Russell Severn, declaring the likeness to be 'quite good.' S./Sgt. Severn had no comment._  
  
It was an expert coup de grâce. Turnbull clipped the article out and kept it in his sketchbook.  
  
  
  
All told, it was a week before the snowman had been chipped away at and melted beyond recognition, and Severn didn't speak to Chase once in that entire time.


	8. Jilted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993: Before Camaraderie, Turnbull carries on curling despite Mark.

_If not for the honor of the game, I would deliver this one at your head._

Mark was oblivious to the brief notions of curling-related assault as he directed from the house, and as Turnbull thought a number of things that he usually wouldn't even consider. Admittedly, he more pictured it in the style of cartoon-violence: a hysterically overblown black eye, tweeting birds, piano-key type broken teeth. However, it was born of genuine hurt and frustration, especially as Mark treated him as little more than a warm body to fill a spot in their rink, as though he was worth even less now than he had been before they dated.

Right. Mind on the game. They were behind. The sheet was no place for jilted boyfriends.

"Just picture the guards as _his_ stones," Guy said, nonchalant and flippant.

A flash of angry sort of amusement -- Lord, he was in a bad mindstate when he was willing to take _Guy's_ advice on matters of curling or emotions -- and Turnbull did just that, clearing the way for them to even up the score.


	9. Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993: Bees! Where did they all come from?

Turnbull was sure that he could still hear a phantom buzzing around his ears, and it took all he had in him not to swat at it compulsively. Truly, he understood it was psychological in origin, but given the number of sore spots he had right now, he thought perhaps he was due a little bit of paranoia.

Severn looked no better; his face had swollen some, and he was standing against the counter sipping tea and staring off with some uncomfortable-looking red blotches on his face.

The scene was not helped by the fact that he was also holding, in his free hand, some ice against his groin.

Turnbull did his best to look small. And be quiet. The urge to apologize yet again was even more compulsive than the urge to swat at invisible, nonexistent bees.

He sat at the desk and rubbed his ankle again.

Silence continued.

He chewed his bottom lip, then winced when he felt the pull and stretch of stung skin.

Silence continued.

He took a deep breath.

"Sir..."

"If this is another apology, Renfield..."

Turnbull fell quiet for a moment, looking at his commanding officer without actually looking at him.

Silence cont...

"I'msoterriblysorrysirIdidn'tmeantorunintothathive," he finally said, yet again. Then, he took another breath and added more calmly, "Nor did I mean to impact your... your..."

"Testicles?"

"...sir, when I dove into my... I mean, the cruiser..." Turnbull trailed off again, blushing.

Severn took a slow breath in through his nose, then let it out with the vaguest smile and shake of his head. "Risk is our business, Renfield."

Turnbull blinked, eyebrow climbing. And then he turned back to his desk and blinked a few more times.

A hive of bees, impacted testicles and a quote from _Star Trek_?

He managed to refrain from apologizing again for the rest of the shift.


	10. Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993: A night by the fire.

_'Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day. And for once I'm inclined to believe Withnail is right; we are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell. Making an enemy of our own future. What we need is harmony. Fresh air. Stuff like that.'_ \- Peter Marwood, 'Withnail  & I'

The light distorted to the curved edge of his glasses. Magnified, stretched on to the shape of metal and glass. Bursting colors.

It could have been the flashing lights of a police car. Could have been the TV, left on late at night to drift into his awareness. Could have been the transient lights of a trip gone beautiful. Guy didn't know. Wherever he was, it was warm.

Life faded in somewhere on those colors, shifting purple, blue, orange. He opened his eyes no further than they were. His glasses were askew; bent some, as they so often ended up. He'd gotten good at repairing them. He was by a fire. Nothing new there. It was a big one, though. Changing colors. Somebody was passing around the color powder, tossing it in.

His resting spot let go of a heavy sigh, pluming more sweet-smelling smoke into the night sky above them. Longfellow. Often as Guy fell asleep on the man, he'd become as familiar as any mattress.

The bonfire whooshed with green flame before it died back to its orange, and Guy grinned lazily at the laughter he could hear at the other side.

He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here, or why the people were gathered, but that just made things more interesting. He shut his eyes again, mostly. People were their own sort of song and light. The flashes of color and flicker through his eyelashes lent to Guy a kind of contentment.

He drifted on the warmth of it.

It was a sleep that seemed to pass in a single breath, but when consciousness found him again, Andrew had moved.

People had fallen quiet. Guy could tell they were still there; he had a kind of sixth sense for knowing how many bodies breathed nearby him, but the laughter had died. Another man would have jumped back hard at what he saw when his eyes cracked open; another set looking _back_ at him, close enough to slam caveman-worthy adrenaline through a man. Not Guy. There was a kind of zen in where he was and with whom.

Drew was sliding his glasses back to their proper place.

It was for curiosity's sake that Guy pretended to remain asleep. Eyes barely open. The sunglasses were settled neatly on the bridge of his nose, and Longfellow seemed to check to make sure none of the others had noticed what he'd done before he flopped back to whatever soft thing it was they were laying on now.

Smoke curled again into the sky, winding away.


	11. Milk and Cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1993: Boxing Day; Guy and Longfellow hang around Renfield's room.

"Fucking _cookie_ ," Longfellow muttered, hand pressed to his cheek, where he was nursing what was probably a cracked tooth.

Guy was struck with the surreality of Longfellow breaking a tooth on a cookie, when he regularly insulted bar patrons in the hopes of getting into a drunken brawl. That Longfellow still had most of his teeth was a testament to many things, but that Longfellow broke his tooth on a cookie was testament to poor dental hygiene.

Guy dunked his own sugar cookie into the glass of milk with all of the dignity of a man at high tea. "Hm."

"Fuck you, it hurts," Longfellow said, then got up to pace around and cuss, still holding his face.

Renfield, of course, was not eating the sugar cookies, though he had been the man to make them. Instead, he already had the telephone directory open and was searching through for a dentist.

It had been somewhat accidental, that they ended up spending Boxing Day hanging around Renfield's room. Guy had been meaning to stop by and drop off his present -- a pair of peace-sign sunglasses -- and had ended up staying for no particular reason. Longfellow had stopped by because he had been looking for Guy to discuss... _business_. And Renfield had been home making cookies. One thing led to another, to another...

"Here," Renfield said, with his tone of long-suffering patience.

Longfellow didn't appear to care, looking at the directory, then going back to pacing again. "Not open until tomorrow. Shitting dentists!"

"Drew. They have an answering service."

"Fuck that, Turnbull. Goddammit, don't you have any ice in this shitbox?"

"Does it _look_ like I have ice? Do you, for that matter, even see a refrigerator up here? Hm? No, I didn't think so."

"Testy," Guy said quietly, keeping the smirk off of his face, and looked between them from behind his sunglasses as they both cast him irritated looks.

Of course, the peace sign sunglasses had not _really_ been Renfield's present. Renfield would not know what his real present had been. Somewhere, a couple of provinces that way, Mark was likely munching away at some of his favorite chocolates, sent to him for Christmas by his employer -- supposedly -- and completely unaware of the gastrointestinal terrorism that was taking place with every bite.

Ah well. Mark would know soon enough.

Longfellow would share his present later, when they would not offend the Mountie.

Guy saluted with his milk and cookies, at his two glowering friends, and basked in the glow of holiday generosity.


	12. Loo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1994: Sometimes, it's the really _mundane_ things that get you.

Running hot to backup the Smeaton units wasn't too common, but it was common enough. Most often, it was an accident. This time, though, it was a standoff with a drunk.

Turnbull had been patrolling his own area for quite some time when the call came in, and had just pulled 420 into the parking lot to stop and use the loo when the call came in.

Of course, he immediately forgot all about the loo; he pushed the cruiser hard, blasting down the highway with lights and siren, listening to the radio and occasionally calling in his own ETA. The drunk had a hunting rifle. There wasn't any time to worry about such mundane issues as a full bladder.

Naturally, by the time he got there, the situation was standing down. And, of course, he was sweating because the summer sun was beating down, thirsty, tired and more than a little irritated that the man was _drunk_ this early in the day.

And almost desperate for a restroom.

"Constable?" Jacobs asked, eyebrows drawn in faint concern; he was one of the very few people in this region younger than Turnbull, and working with the man always left Turnbull feeling somehow a little taller than he was. Or, at least, viewed that way. "Are you all right? You look..."

 _Like a man about to explode?_ Turnbull asked in his mind, though he only cleared his throat and gestured. "Ah... well, I'm..."

He dropped his head and sighed at the ground, then looked up again with a polite little duty smile. "Excuse me for one moment, please."

Then he promptly turned, fighting down his own embarrassment, and found himself a mostly secluded spot behind a stand of trees. At least, though, he managed to stifle the heartfelt groan of relief.


	13. Cold and Damp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1994: Turnbull directs traffic at an accident scene.

The early fall rain came down in torrents, and his hat did little to protect him. Traffic was backed up some three intersections now, and bleeding the vehicles off to the side streets became a good deal more difficult for the amount of smooshed faces against the windows, trying to catch a glimpse.

Such was the nature of these things; an eighteen-wheeler had taken out the entire front end of a white sedan at an intersection, and a woman was likely just arriving at the hospital, hopefully still breathing.

"What's going on?" One of the motorists had stopped and rolled down his window to call out.

Turnbull fought down the very rare urge to get sarcastic in response. "An accident. I'm certain the Journal will have the information in tomorrow's paper; in the meantime, please keep moving."

The man opened his mouth again. "Were there any--?"

" _Drive_ , sir," Turnbull answered, more sharply. "Thank you kindly."

The man made a face and continued on.

The rain kept coming down, and he blinked it out of his eyes, then waved the next cars through.


	14. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1994: Turnbull, Chase and another late night call.

It was nearly the morning twilight, when the accident scene was finally managed and all was as under control as it could be. But the air didn't hold that breathless anticipation of dawn; instead, it felt as though the light would never return, and the world would remain cloaked in darkness.

Turnbull sat in the driver's seat of B420 and rubbed at his eyes. He felt preternaturally calm; that sort of calm that comes when one has been witness to something so fundamentally _wrong_ that they have little choice but to detach, step back and try to understand how the universe could be a party to such a thing.

For the moment, no answers were coming. And his hands were still shaking, despite the internal quiet.

Outside, the lights of the wrecker reflected off of the scatter of safety glass in the road. Even though he couldn't see it from this vantage, he knew where the dark stains of blood were. A small amount. A small body that made the marks.

His jaw knotted and he breathed, eyes closed.

A soft knock on the window made him jump and tense, and he looked over to find Corporal Chase. After a moment, he rolled the window down and breathed out, composing himself properly. "Yes, sir?"

"Tea?"

Turnbull raised his eyebrows. "...tea, sir?"

Chase nodded, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening. "Definitely tea. Meet you back at the building."

Turnbull blinked once, letting that sink in, then nodded slowly. "Sir." And after a little nod back, Chase headed back over to his own cruiser, his steps a little slower and heavier than normal, leaving the quiet and the dark and the trembling.

Turnbull did make it back for tea some half-hour later, after clearing the scene, eyes red from where he had to pull over on his way back to the detachment to put his forehead to his steering wheel and sob.


	15. Disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1994: Opposite day on Halloween in Nipawin.

I have always enjoyed Halloween.

It isn't that I'm usually one to dress up. It's that the women tend to come in the most fascinating flavors on this day, and one would be foolish not to open that particular box of chocolates. If I do say so myself, I'm well-suited to gold and white. Now and again I catch a glint from the gold that tints my cheeks. This toga makes aspects of my anatomy feel surprisingly free. These sandals are uncomfortable. And I wear makeup far better than a straight man should.

I've outdone myself this year. The only hint that I haven't fallen from the heavens, aside the wire that bears my halo, is my sunglasses. The bar is packed; even Renfield has come, to my surprise. I wasn't aware he was off. Perhaps he is humoring me. I like it when he humors me; attempting to figure out why is always a fascinating venture. He doesn't look as though he's been here long, and doesn't look at all like he is going to stay.

I catch his eye, and he does the Renfield equivalent of a double-take. Blinking rapidly at me, as though what he sees is the trick of a speck of dust.

Yes, Mountie. I am an angel for the evening. And I have yet to find my devil.

I weave my way through the room toward the door where Renfield lingers. I pull a set of devil's horns from my pocket and offer them out, notched between two fingers, along with a lazy grin.

"Opposite night?"

Renfield is blinking again, this time at my offering. It's a moment before he takes them, though he makes no move to put them on.

"Perhaps," he answers with the smallest huff of a laugh.

Over my sunglasses, I wink at him before I slip back into the crowd. He is gone, when next I look.


	16. Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1995: Mike Chase reflects on unlikelihoods of the universe.

"...really?"

"Yes, sir."

"Laurent."

"Indeed."

Mike Chase leaned waaaaaaay back, glancing behind Turnbull to get a good, long, disbelieving look at Guy Laurent.

It took a moment for Guy to notice, and when he did, he tipped Chase a lazy salute as though he was expecting to be watched.

Chase's eyebrows climbed, and he leaned slowly forward again to look back at Turnbull.

"I assure you, I have asked myself many times if it was merely an elaborate hallucination on my part, but he was, indeed, a short-lived RCMP recruit."

He couldn't begin to fathom how the Hell that chronic miscreant could've cleared the requirements to make it to Depot, but Chase was suddenly picturing one or two uptight instructors he didn't care for having to deal with the man. Guy Laurent, drunken destruction incarnate, stuffed in a uniform and shoved into a troop, looking for all the world like any other recruit. Sheep in wolf's clothing. Chase had to think winding up that jack in the box resulted in a fantastic punch to the face for one of those old guard types before it was all over.

"How--"

The question unfinished, Chase was laughing before he knew what hit him.


	17. Radio Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1995: A single snapshot of No Man's Land, between Here and Now and Sky.

They found him within twenty minutes, gripping the steering wheel to his cruiser hard enough that his knuckles were white, his gaze a thousand yards distant. He barely even reacted when Mike and Russ walked up on him, one on one side, one on the other; a faint startle, a shorter drawn breath. But little more than that.

The summer air was heavy and merciless.

Mike squinted briefly through the open window, leaning his arms on the frame. Turnbull closed his eyes with a slow, painful look of resignation, opening his mouth to say something. But nothing came, and then he just breathed shakily, leaving the silence to speak where none of them could.

All of this had been mere seconds in the making... and long, heartsick months in trying to put the pieces back together.

Mike straightened up and his jaw knotted, looking across the roof of 420 to Russ.

They didn't need to say anything. After a moment, Russ's mouth twisted, a short and vague twitch of misery, and he gave the barest of nods. It seemed as though all words had abandoned them. The heart of Nipawin was in the space between the three of them, and it was bleeding.

Mike closed his own eyes for a moment, then opened the driver's side door and made himself bear witness to the silent devastation when Turnbull handed over the keys.


	18. Despite All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1996: One of Turnbull's earliest days in Chicago.

He fastened his collar in the mirror, then looked over the red tunic, making certain there were no stray threads and that nothing was out of place. Red, gold, brown and blue reflected back; he remembered the first time he had put it on for graduation, and he remembered the first time he truly looked at his own reflection wearing it.

That had been a moment of grim pride; he had made it. Despite all.

He wore it so rarely before that the pride of doing so outweighed the fact that it was tight, restrictive and that the collar often felt like it caught his breath just one shade too short. It had always been in some sort of celebration, after graduation was past and he slowly began to feel somewhat safe inside of his own skin again. But there wasn't much time to feel restricted, strangled, because once the celebration was over, he was back on duty, back on patrol, back to a uniform that felt more like a second skin than a suit of armor.

Red, brown, gold, blue reflected back. A flash of memory: Graduation. Grim pride. He had made it, despite all.

He picked up his stetson, turned around and headed for the door, retrieving his storm coat and heading out the door into the cold Chicago winter, high browns slick against the ground; breath caught one shade too short, balance one shade wrong.

This was a moment of quiet resignation; perhaps he hadn't, after all.


	19. Missing Person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1996: There was no answer.

It was dark and a little chill outside of the building, and Mike didn't look forward to having to wash the mud off of his tactical boots. The spring air was sharper than he wanted it to be and promised to get colder before morning, but at least he wasn't the guy on-call tonight for midnights. Even though that meant Mitch got to take B414 home with him, and would return it with some kind of grease spot where it shouldn't be in the morning, sleeping with one eye open in case dispatch called because they had no one to cover the graveyard shift.

B420 sat silent in the parking lot with a smudge of dirt down one side, marking the blue and white paint. Even Mitch and Sandy tended to avoid driving it, if they could talk Mike out of 414, or if 418 had decided it was going to run reliably for any stretch of time.

Mike stood quietly for a long moment, just looking at the cruiser, then went inside and got the keys. Came back out, unlocked the door and sat in the passenger's seat.

He'd spent a lot of time in this spot last year. But it had been too little, too late.

There was dust on the dash where there never would have been, before. Streaks on the windshield that would have been washed off every night, instead of when it rained. But he could still catch the faint hint of vanilla, even then.

RCMP radio call signs were by unit, not individual. Whoever drove the unit had the unit's call sign. But in a small detachment like this one, where they spent a great deal of time with the same vehicle, the number became something of a dual identity; the unit, but also the person most associated with it. Mike was sure that, ten years from now, he would still snap his head up if he heard any part of 'bravo four-fourteen' over a radio. Long after his own cruiser was gone, he would still reach to answer echoes.

"Bravo four-two-oh, advise a code," he whispered.

But there was no answer.


End file.
